


More Than A Reaction

by Nicole Crucial (moilArchitect)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:26:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moilArchitect/pseuds/Nicole%20Crucial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What Eridan always looks for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than A Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tumblr user jn-egbert.

Any troll can tell you that at the center of any quadrant is one thing:  _reaction._

Without a proper stimulus, without a reaction and the corresponding emotion--be it hate or pity--there can be no moirallegiance, matespritship, kismessitude or auspisticism.

Without a strong reaction there is not a strong quadrant. And any troll who hasn't been fucking _lobotomized_ has at least  _some_  kind of reaction to another.

And that's what Eridan searches for in all of his numerous ill-advised romantic aspirations, be they red or black: reaction. Reaction means that even if it isn't in the way he wants, that other troll has feelings towards him. Even if it's just annoyance--frustrating because it's not quite strong enough for kismessitude--it proves that others are capable of feeling things in his direction. It proves he exists, that he makes a difference at least in some small way.

In reactions, if not in quadrants, he can find solace.

But not when it comes to her.

Aradia Megido is perhaps the only troll to ever receive his advances with complete apathy. Irritation, he can handle. Kindness is actually more frustrating, but still tolerable. But apathy? As if she doesn't even  _care_  that a highblood of his caliber is making a pass at her? _Unacceptable._

He won't admit it but it makes him feel a hundred times worse than being rejected ever could. Hell, she won't even  _reject_ him, she just  _doesn't care_.

It's soul-crushing, actually.

But Eridan is a notorious masochist. Maybe if he could fix her, he thinks, if he could find a way to repair the damage Vriska did, things would be different.

Maybe someday this could be about more than a reaction.

* * *

Days, weeks, months later and it turns out that she is whole again, and without his interference. She does not tell anyone of the pesterlogs where deep purple text rambles on for lines and lines in lilting seadweller accent about nothing and about everything. When she was dead, it was so easy to just brush him off.

Even when she was first resurrected, it was easy. She told herself it was just Eridan being Eridan, desperate and superficial and full of his stupid fishy self, and that she didn't need to bother with him.

But he doesn't stop.

He's confided to her his little shtick about reactions, after which he promptly called himself a fool for opening up to her and sulked for a few days, and she's baffled because he has his reaction now: the classic mild irritation he's always met with. Eridan should just be a nuisance to her at this point.

But he doesn't stop.

One day she decides to ask him why and there is a long time where he doesn't type anything.

because maybe noww it's about more than a glubbin reaction.

She stares at the text on her screen for a long time before a small smile graces her face.

0k.


End file.
